“Today I want to speak about why we chose to remove these four monuments to the Lost Cause of the Confederacy, but also how and why this process can move us towards healing and understanding of each other. So, let’s start with the facts.

The historic record is clear, the Robert E. Lee, Jefferson Davis, and P.G.T. Beauregard statues were not erected just to honor these men, but as part of the movement which became known as The Cult of the Lost Cause. This ‘cult’ had one goal — through monuments and through other means — to rewrite history to hide the truth, which is that the Confederacy was on the wrong side of humanity. First erected over 166 years after the founding of our city and 19 years after the end of the Civil War, the monuments that we took down were meant to rebrand the history of our city and the ideals of a defeated Confederacy. It is self-evident that these men did not fight for the United States of America, They fought against it. They may have been warriors, but in this cause they were not patriots. These statues are not just stone and metal. They are not just innocent remembrances of a benign history. These monuments purposefully celebrate a fictional, sanitized Confederacy; ignoring the death, ignoring the enslavement, and the terror that it actually stood for.

After the Civil War, these statues were a part of that terrorism as much as a burning cross on someone’s lawn; they were erected purposefully to send a strong message to all who walked in their shadows about who was still in charge in this city. Should you have further doubt about the true goals of the Confederacy, in the very weeks before the war broke out, the Vice President of the Confederacy, Alexander Stephens, made it clear that the Confederate cause was about maintaining slavery and white supremacy. He said in his now famous ‘corner-stone speech’ that the Confederacy’s “cornerstone rests upon the great truth, that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery — subordination to the superior race — is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth.””

. . . and . . .

“To literally put the Confederacy on a pedestal in our most prominent places of honor is an inaccurate recitation of our full past. It is an affront to our present, and it is a bad prescription for our future. History cannot be changed. It cannot be moved like a statue. What is done is done. The Civil War is over, and the Confederacy lost and we are better for it. Surely we are far enough removed from this dark time to acknowledge that the cause of the Confederacy was wrong.”

. . . and . . .

“We have not erased history; we are becoming part of the city’s history by righting the wrong image these monuments represent and crafting a better, more complete future for all our children and for future generations. And unlike when these Confederate monuments were first erected as symbols of white supremacy, we now have a chance to create not only new symbols, but to do it together, as one people.”

. . . and . . .

“The Confederacy was on the wrong side of history and humanity. It sought to tear apart our nation and subjugate our fellow Americans to slavery. This is the history we should never forget and one that we should never again put on a pedestal to be revered.”

As Mayor Landrieu points out, the Cult of the Lost Cause of the Confederacy should be in history books and museums but not in public places of honor.

If people want to participate in this Cult by displaying symbols of the Confederacy on their private property and online, then so be it.

However, it would be hypocritical for anyone to do so while claiming to be a Republican, because the Republican Party was formed to oppose the cause of the Confederacy. A Republican displaying the Confederate flag would be akin to an Orthodox rabbi eating pork.

Sadly, plenty of so-called “Republicans” are defending the Cult of the Lost Cause of the Confederacy. Click here and here for examples of such.

If any Republicans are going to revere the Confederacy, then they ought to form their own political party, because they definitely don’t belong to the party of Abraham Lincoln.

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About The Author

A refugee from Planet Melmac masquerading as a human. In fair condition. A fixer-upper. Warranty still good. Not necessarily sane. Publisher and editor of the Melmacian Times @ http://melmacian.tumblr.com/

Idahoser

if we let the democrats erase the history of their party, there will be noone left to remember so they will do it again.
heck they are TRYING to do it again already, that’s what all this Occupy and BLM and Safe Space stuff is all about, creating a straw man.

jim_m

Bingo.

The only thing happening here is that the left wants to escape from their culpability in the Civil War and in their defense of slavery and their century long assault on civil rights.

They believe that if they can erase all evidence of it that they can pretend it never happened.

The claim that this should be taught in schools is laughable. What is taught in schools today? Why they teach that the GOP is the party of slavery and the Lincoln was a democrat. If you allow them to tear down every monument they will make up our history and THAT is what they really desire.

Scalia

As Mayor Landrieu points out, the Cult of the Lost Cause of the Confederacy should be in history books and museums but not in public places of honor.

Tim Knight of the nonprofit that runs the museum said Clemmons “demanded” the removal. He said museum officials assumed she spoke with the authority of the county government. However, Robinson said Clemmons’ request was personal and not official.

The site of the August 1864 battle is now a county park. The museum is on county property. A nonprofit opened the museum in a historic building about five years ago.

The museum was set up to give equal weight to both sides of the story of the American Civil War. “Nash Farms has always represented both sides of the conflict,” said Stuart Carter, a resident and supporter of the museum.

Inside the museum, there are portraits of generals who fought for the north and the south at the 1864 battle. Outside, there are three flagpoles. One is empty. Until a few weeks ago, the empty pole displayed a confederate flag with a white field and a St. Andrew’s Cross battle flag in the upper left corner.

“One of our commissioners (Clemmons) asked for it to be removed and the request was granted,” Robinson said.

Knight says Commissioner Clemmons returned a few weeks later and insisted on the removal of other Confederate artifacts inside the museum as well. Once again, Knight said it appeared the commissioner was speaking on behalf of county government.

This is not history; this is a whitewash.

Vagabond661

What of our elected officials who owned slaves back then? Should we remove all traces of them? Schools named after them? Pictures on our currency?

jim_m

That is exactly what the left wants. They want to eradicate everything about America because America is inherently evil.

I have a modest proposal. What say we ban the Party of the Confederacy and of their supporters in the North from the recent unpleasantness between the states…

Scalia

If people want to participate in this Cult by displaying symbols of the Confederacy on their private property and online, then so be it.

However, it would be hypocritical for anyone to do so while claiming to be a Republican, because the Republican Party was formed to oppose the cause of the Confederacy. A Republican displaying the Confederate flag would be akin to an Orthodox rabbi eating pork (bold emphasis added).

And this cause would be what, David? Since the Confederacy did not exist when the GOP was formed, the “cause” to which you refer would presumably be slavery, no? You, of course, understand that President Lincoln supported the Corwin Amendment to the Constitution, correct? If you’re not aware of it, here is the text:

No amendment shall be made to the Constitution which will authorize or give to Congress the power to abolish or interfere, within any State, with the domestic institutions thereof, including that of persons held to labor or service by the laws of said State.

This had the legal effect of making slavery immune to repeal by any amendment to the Constitution. What did Lincoln say about it?

I understand a proposed amendment to the Constitution—which amendment, however, I have not seen—has passed Congress, to the effect that the Federal Government shall never interfere with the domestic institutions of the States, including that of persons held to service … holding such a provision to now be implied constitutional law, I have no objection to its being made express and irrevocable.

As a lover of history, I just knew you’d love a little perspective.

For more perspective, perhaps you’re unaware of blacks who support the Confederate flag:

There’s Karen Cooper, the Virginia woman who described how the Confederate flag, to her, represents defiance in the face of oppression.

“I actually think that it represents freedom,” Cooper, a black woman, says in a webisode of the documentary Battle Flag. “It represents a people who stood up to tyranny.”

According to the Washington Post, Cooper takes her support for the controversial flag—once flown by states that fought to maintain slavery—to the next level. She’s a member of an advocacy group called the Virginia Flaggers that is striving to rebrand the flag because, its members say, contrary to popular opinion, it doesn’t represent racism or hate.

Then there’s Byron Thomas, an African-American student at the University of South Carolina, who argues that one’s intentions and actions dictate what the Confederate flag stands for. He explained how he doesn’t use it to convey prejudice.

“Dylann [Roof] decided to use his Confederate flag for racism,” Thomas said, referencing the reportedly self-confessed gunman who fatally shot nine people in a historically black church in Charleston, S.C., June 17.

“My Confederate flag that I own I do not use for racism,” Thomas said. Thomas told CNN that even after the Charleston church shooting, he still does not find the flag to be racially offensive, since he thinks people are co-opting the image for their own personal racist agenda.

Tell me, Mr Sanctimonious Dumbass, if you would willingly consign 620,000 people to death for something you believed could be achieved through moral suasion?

I know. You’re a liberal so you hold life cheaply and you would gladly murder any number of people to advance your ideological agenda.

However, Lincoln didn’t want to waste lives unnecessarily. He wanted to preserve the union first. He saw the end of slavery as inevitable and as a moral necessity, but he didn’t want to slaughter hundreds of thousands of people to achieve a political outcome. That’s something the left has lost sight of.

Scalia

Yes, I have reproduced snippets of this letter on these boards. Lincoln’s object, of course, was to save the Union, and that included his support of a constitutional amendment preserving slavery in the South.

pennywit

Indeed. Here, I introduced it solely because I think it’s interesting to see historical figures’ motivations.

jim_m

Take the statement in context. Lincoln ran for President as head of an abolitionist party on an abolitionist platform. None of that means a thing if the slave states secede. Preservation of the union is required if the aim of the abolition movement is to be achieved.

A constitutional amendment preserving slavery in the South while containing it and preventing its spread to the west would have been preferable to having to compete with the Confederacy for western states and ultimately losing those states to a nation that would have perpetuated slavery for at least another century.

Lincoln was willing to play the long game, something that most modern Americans are utterly unfamiliar with.

Brucehenry

That’s the most thoughtful, insightful, and intelligent comment you’ve posted here in a long long time. Kudos.

Hawk_TX

Don’t forget the Crittenden–Johnson Resolution passed by the northern Congress in July 1861, stating specifically that preserving the Union and maintaining the supremacy of the Constitution and not interfering with slavery were the purposes of the war.

After Confederate aficionado Dylann Roof killed nine black men and women in Charleston, S.C., the liberal mainstream media began a campaign against the Confederate flag on the premise that it represented racism and that anybody who supported it was therefore a racist bigot.

What the media never did, however, was listen to the Sons of Confederate Veterans, an association of descendants of former Confederate soldiers.

“Historical fact shows there were Black Confederate soldiers,” members of the group wrote in a statement to the public. “These brave men fought in the trenches beside their White brothers, all under the Confederate Battle Flag.”

The group’s membership roll also includes Native Americans, Asian Americans, Hispanics, Christians and Jews, all of whom “fought on behalf of the Confederacy because “they believed (it) was right.”

“The love and defense of the South’s symbols, culture, and heritage is not hate,” the group added. “It is knowing and understanding of the truth.”

Alas, the liberal mainstream media hates truth, which is why it diligently tried to “distort Confederate symbols in an attempt to make them stand for hatred and disillusion.”

Yet nothing about the Sons of Confederate Veterans radiates hatred. For instance, the group hosts a strict policy that prohibits anyone with racist views or ties to racist organizations from being granted membership.

Roof was never associated with the group, for example, nor would he have even been allowed entry into the prestigious organization.

The only person that we know for certain was killed over Confederate support was a black Confederate flag supporter. Anthony Hervey was killed in July 2015 when he was forced off the road as he returned from rally in support of a Confederate monument.

I knew you’d get this kind of hysterical reaction, David. From guys like Jim, eager to pretend that the Democrats of 1865 are the ideological ancestors of “”the left” today, to defenders, however blandly, of a mild version of Lost Cause mythology.

When I was in first grade my segregated all-white Southern elementary school embarked on a four-year commemoration of the “Civil War Centennial” and I remember well the tone of the lessons — that the war wasn’t “really about slavery” but instead about tariffs and states’ rights. That was bullshit, of course, as we can admit today. Oh, and the violence of Reconstruction and the introduction of Jim Crow was in response to the unscrupulous carpetbagger yankees who let the manifestly unfit freedmen run things until, thank God, white Democrats and vigilante Klansmen restored the natural order of things. Of course, it was acknowledged that maybe things had gone too far and that “Negroes” might have a grievance or two, but hey, change can’t be rushed! In another two or three generations things would probably get better! Maybe they’ll deserve equal rights if they just don’t cause any trouble, don’t look sideways at white girls, and remember their place until this better day is bestowed on them — by whites.

The Lost Cause cult, a shameful, cynical way for the same old slaveholder class to regain and remain in power by pitting poor whites against poor blacks, started in Reconstruction and was still going strong 100 years later. 50 years after THAT, it’s time to move on. Landrieu is exactly right.

jim_m

You’ll note that I have said that I object to the whitewashing of history. I believe that people should remember the wrongs of the past, not to hold them as perpetual grievances, but as lessons so we don’t repeat them.

You on the other hand don’t give a shit about history and are eager to hide that you are a racist SOB and that your fellow travelers would impose segregation if they could. Oh wait! They already are. There isn’t any racist activity that you can’t fin the left at the core of.

Retired military

I have been on this blog for years. Don’t know how many but it has been at least 10 and I can never remember any post that Bruce has made that can be construed as his being a racist.

jim_m

I too have been here a long time. I have been coming here since the blogs inception.

My point on Bruce is that he supports policies whose results are demonstrably anti-black and which serve no other purpose than to keep blacks mired in ignorance and poverty. Whether he is overtly racist or not he supports policies that are.

He then defends those policies by claiming that people who oppose them are racist. He constantly makes the false claim that the dems are not responsible for the long history of racism that is theirs, but it is really the conservatives who are. He makes the false claim

I call him a racist for the positions he takes which doom blacks to desperate lives in crime plagued neighborhoods, living in complete dependency to government handouts. His positions are all predicated on the foundation that blacks are incapable of achieving success like white people because they are genetically incapable of the mental and physical exertion that whites are. I’ve actually had that last discussion with him. He blames “White Privilege”.

You can say that he isn’t a racist, but I have watched him defend racist policies for over a decade. Who would do that except a racist?

Raisin212k

Actually, John C. Calhoun was a Jacksonian Democrat, and a self described conservative. He died a full decade prior to the civil war, but Calhoun set the stage. He was a champion of states rights, secession, slavery, and all that fancy stuff.

jim_m

Bruce’s argument is that the dems are guiltless in slavery, that racism has always been the act of conservatives and it is therefore the GOP that is guilty of racism. He cherry picks which dems from history are representative of his party and ascribes the others as conservatives who are more representative of the GOP. It is loathesome and dishonest.

Back in the day both parties covered a spectrum from liberal to conservative. Yet the parties voted strongly either for or against civil rights and slavery. Both liberals and conservatives voted on either side. Slavery and civil rights were not liberal or conservative ideals. Racism knows no boarders in that regard. To claim that it was just one segment of the party that was responsible for these actions is again dishonest.

Retired military

I don’t see Bruce’s arguments as that, the same way I don’t see your arguments as the exact opposite. The written word is a very poor communication tool in discussions like this. People in general try to distill a very very complex discussion into a few paragraphs and the message as intended is distorted by our own views. Also when people are attacked they go into defensive mode and dig in. It is instinctive.

Hawk_TX

Lincoln also was a champion of states rights and secession, at least when it was convenient. When it came time to honor his oath of office he abandoned that in exchange for unconstitutional dictatorial powers.

Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable, a most sacred right – a right which we hope and believe is to liberate the world. Nor is this right confined to cases in which the whole people of an existing government may choose to exercise it. Any portion of such people, that can, may revolutionize, and make their own of so much of the territory as they inhabit. – Abraham Lincoln, January 12, 1848

Raisin212k

First off, he never says a thing about states rights, so we can drop that entirely. Lincoln was a lawyer. He knew about the Right of Revolution. It was noted in Thomas Paine’s Common Sense, and more distinctly worded in our own Declaration of Independence. It’s a pretty standard American institution. In this speeches entirety, a full 12 years before the Civil War, Lincoln admits Texas’ pre-US-annexation-right to attempt to govern themselves, “being inclined and HAVING THE POWER”. That last part, having the power, seems to denote that it is also natural that most incumbent regimes will require forced removal.

If Lincoln were to have come out and said he believed it was wrong for governments to suppress what they interpreted to be illegal and hostile rebellions, that would be the shoe you need to fit that hypocritical/criminal deformed foot you’re trying to present as Lincoln.

But as Lincoln would have known, the framers asserted their hopes for perpetual integrity of the Union in the Federalist papers, starting with Hamilton’s number 6. Later, Madison spoke against secession during the Nullification Crisis, and Lincoln himself cited the opening statements of the constitution, “to form a MORE PERFECT UNION”. Clearly Lincoln was aware of precedent there and acted in accordance with the intentions of the framers. Lincoln even invoked the Militia Act of 1795 when he called for volunteers. Nothing tyrannical or dictatorial about it.

You trying to recruit more ignorant souls for your southern Lost Cause cult?

Hawk_TX

Lincoln’s quote was talking about the right people have to govern themselves. Which is perhaps the most fundamental principle of the United States form of government. As he noted this right is not confined to the whole people of the existing government, it applies to states and other people as well. Incidentally a state is nothing more than a politically organized body of people occupying a defined territory. Meaning that the people of a state can choose to exercise their rights and ” may revolutionize, and make their own of so much of the territory as they inhabit.”

There is nothing in “HAVING THE POWER” that requires this revolution to be by force, it simply means having the political power to shake of the existing government and form a new one.

There is nothing in the constitution that states or even hints that the integrity of the Union would be perpetual. That was part of the failed articles of confederation, no the Constitution. In fact that concept was specifically rejected at the Constitutional Convention when a proposal was made to allow the Federal Government to suppress a seceding state. A proposal that was rejected after James Madison the author of the Constitution said…

A Union of the States containing such an ingredient seemed to provide for its own destruction. The use of force against a State, would look more like a declaration of war, than an infliction of punishment, and would probably be considered by the party attacked as a dissolution of all previous compacts by which it might be bound.

Speaking of the Federalist papers James Madison wrote this in Federalist No. 39:

Each State, in ratifying the Constitution, is considered as a sovereign body, independent of all others, and only to be bound by its own voluntary act. In this relation, then, the new Constitution will, if established, be a FEDERAL, and not a NATIONAL constitution.

“Only bound by its own voluntary act”, meaning that if a state chose to voluntarily withdraw from the Union it would be within the rights of the people of that state. By no means was this sentiment unique to James Madison.

If any state in the Union will declare that it prefers separation… to a continuance in union… I have no hesitation in saying, ‘let us separate.’ – Thomas Jefferson

The Union was formed by the voluntary agreement of the States; and these, in uniting together, have not forfeited their Nationality, nor have they been reduced to the condition of one and the same people. If one of the States chose to withdraw its name from the contract, it would be difficult to disprove its right of doing so-Alexis de Tocqueville

The hopes of the framers aside Lincoln should have been aware that the Constitution does not bar a state from seceding. It does however say that “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.(10th amendment)”
The power to prevent a state from seceding was not delegated to the U.S.(the drafters specifically rejected it), therefore it remained with the states or the people. And as such he was bound by oath to allow them to leave in peace.

Lincoln was in fact a tyrannical dictator guilty of numerous crimes. Here is a short list of some of his crimes.
1. Lincoln ordered the military blockade of Southern ports, an act of war that only congress had the authority to do.(violating war powers)
2. Lincoln ordered the calling up of 75,000 troops to invade the South. Only Congress can do that. This is a clear violation of the US Constitution.
3. Lincoln shutdown hundreds of newspapers and had their owners arrested for disloyalty. (violating 1st amendment)
4. Chief Justice Roger Taney, sitting as a judge of the United States Circuit Court for the District of Maryland, ruled that Lincoln had violated the Constitution when he illegally suspended the Writ of Habeas Corpus. Lincoln ordered him arrested.
5. Lincoln confiscated weapons in Maryland,a Union state, violating the 2nd amendment.
6. Lincoln had a Ohio Congressman, a Maryland Congressman, the Maryland state legislature, and most of the city of Baltimore government arrested. They were held without trial in military prisons, some for years.
7.He allowed the taking of private property for public use without just compensation or due process of law. (violating the 5th amendment)
8.When it looks as though Maryland may secede from the Union, Lincoln sends a letter to General Winfield Scott giving him permission to bombard Maryland’s Cities. This war criminal Lincoln couldn’t wait to bombard innocent civilians. We call that Terrorism these days.
9. Lincoln allowed his Generals to wage war upon civilians of the South. We call that Terrorism now days.

Retired military

Jim
I don’t defend Bruce’s statements. I disagree with a lot of t hem. I do defend Bruce the man. I don’t believe him to be racist.
To GREATLY simplify your justification for doing so is like saying racists breathe therefor if you breathe you are racist. Again that is a VERY BROAD simplification. I don’t believe everyone espousing white privilege is racist. There are idiots out there who think because they are white they are owed something (and the same for every other race). Am I now considered racist as well? I do believe a lot of racist espouse white privilege (or black privilege or oriental privilege). Thankfully those who truly believe that they are entitled based on race vs those who espouse the practice of it are few and far between. It is like the old saying 99% of the rules are made for 1% of the people. Stop giving the 1% their 23 hours and 45 minutes of fame.
Racist is a very ugly title. To use it in broad terms demeans the ugliness of it. Like the dems playing the race card. If everything is racist then nothing is. It loses its sting for those that are truly reprehensible.
It is like the MSM comparing Trump to Hitler. If Trump did something truly vile and reprehensible (although the MSM feels the fact that he just breathes is truly vile and reprehensible) then what do folks call him? Hitler squared? Whereas I believe that Hillary is truly vile and reprehensible I would never seriously compare her to Hitler.
Jim and Bruce
You two (and others) have been trading insults at each other for so long it is the first thing you post to each other and it dominates any point you are trying to make. You are of course free to continue but know that it truly detracts from your arguments rather than helps to make it.
Surely you can disagree on policies and substance without the insults and name calling.

pennywit

If Trump did something truly vile and reprehensible

RM, the man puts ketchup on a good steak.

Retired military

To each his own. I prefer Roadhouse steak sauce but use A1 when I don’t have any of that at home.

pennywit

I sometimes use A1, but I really really like a good marinade or rub. I’ve also had good luck with this Madeira sauce. But putting ketchup on a good steak … there ought to be a special level of Hell for that.

It’s very possible to believe your ideas are right and true and good… and completely ignore the chaos they cause.

Because that chaos can always be cured by MOAR MONEYZ!!! (Which, since you’re handing it out, can be ‘steered’ to the proper places and people with a gift tag attached so they’ll know who got ’em the money at the next election… and if a little bit of that cash is lost along the way, that’s just the price you pay for ‘helping’ people.)

knew you’d get this kind of hysterical reaction, David. From guys like Jim, eager to pretend that the Democrats of 1865 are the ideological ancestors of “”the left” today, to defenders, however blandly, of a mild version of Lost Cause mythology.

As far as I can tell, the current Democrat goals are identical to those of their Confederate/KKK forefathers. Only the tactics are different.

When they were keeping kids out of Central High School, lynching people, and passing Jim Crow laws, it was quite obvious who the enemy was and of course that was fought to a standstill. There was no mistaking who the bad guys were – George Wallace has a reputation akin to Hitler, and correctly so.

That was an obviously losing approach, so instead, the Democrats co-opted the civil rights movement, found some willing overseers, er, “civil rights leaders” to play along for power and fortune, and then rebranded themselves as people really really care about poor people. And set about enslaving them endlessly with The Great Society, Urban Renewal, Food Stamps, AFDC, etc. Just like drug dealers – if you vote to end this, you vote to take money out of your own pockets. These are the people who invented the infamous “projects” – a hell hole existence filled with violence, drug use, and rampant promiscuity.

The new version of slavery is the endless handouts,and keeping people convinced that the country is fundamentally rigged to cause them to fail. So, they become trapped in a cycle of dependency and figure every setback is the result of otherwise invisible racism. The latter is the central tenet of “critical race theory”.

They have destroyed at least 2 entire generations of black families. So as far as I can see, the current left has “succeeded” far better than the KKK could have ever imagined.

Brucehenry

Well that’s an interesting version of history — oh, wait, no it isn’t, it’s tired, simple-minded, and believed by rubes who know nothing of the history that those of us of a certain age have all watched unfold before our eyes.

jim_m

Point out where it is inaccurate. You can’t. Fact are stubborn things you asshat. You can lie all you want about what happened. No one here is going to believe a 60+ YO man with a third grade education.

I haven’t been able to tell whether you genuinely believe the things you say, you realize you picked the wrong horse but are too morally weak to admit it, or you are part of actively participating in this new version of cultural genocide.

And I am not sure why you think you are some wise elder possessing a broader perspective. I doubt you are much older than I am and you certainly haven’t shown any sort of wisdom!

Brucehenry

Ha ha I don’t actually think I’m any smarter than anyone else here — except Jim and Rodney, but that’s a low bar. I just use snark and insult because it’s always been used here, by many commenters and authors, starting with Jay Tea who was the main author when I first came to Wizbang.

I snicker at your version of history because it is boilerplate, and could have been lifted from any wingnut website anywhere discussing these matters. What has happened with the civil rights movement, the War on Poverty, the Great Society, and the shift of the white South from the Democratic party to the Republican party is a complicated, nuanced history, and not something that can be reduced to your simple-minded narrative, a narrative that has been fed to simple minds to feed their resentment and keep ’em voting “conservative” for several decades now.

No, the Great Society/War on Poverty wasn’t a plot to re-enslave black folk. Yes, the battle flag was co-opted by forces arrayed against the CRA and, while it may represent Southern valor at arms to some, it represents slavery and oppression and resistance to freedom to most others. No, Gone With The Wind wasn’t a documentary.

The movement to “take down from the pedestal” the romanticized monuments, placed in town squares to commemorate a Lost Cause that never was about anything but slavery and racism as if was about honor and valor, is on the right side of history. Read Landrieu’s full remarks with an open mind and at the very least you’ll understand his viewpoint — which is the viewpoint of the majority, by the way.

WHO’S THE BUSTER

Well, if any semblance of the Trump budget passes, we will see how the tough love approach works. Cut health care, food stamps and other benefits and poor blacks will undoubtedly accept those jobs they have been avoiding. Heck, if they deport the illegal immigrants en masse perhaps they can return to the fields and pick produce. Hey, at least it isn’t cotton.

I always wonder if many on the right think that if you starve the poor they will move somewhere. Where? Well, that is yet to be determined.

In the late sixties or early seventies people could be blamed for not gaining employment. Here in Detroit, a functioning idiot could put bolts on an auto at a factory and make a ridiculously good living. If not the auto factory, there were plentiful jobs at any affiliated facility.

I have no doubt that most regions had a similar, regional industry. Are those jobs available now? Of course not, heck, you want to meet someone with an MBA, go to the local Home Depot and they will cut carpet for you.

Beware of the upcoming economic cycle; the bursting real estate bubble was easy to see coming and so is what is coming next. Auto sales are falling and retail outlets, including even the drug stores, are closing at a rapid rate. The market has been going steadily upwards since it bottomed out at around 7000 and those Trump manufacturing jobs are never coming back.

So perhaps cutting off benefits to poor blacks (and whites, let’s not kid ourselves) is ill-timed.

On a side note, anyone watching American Epic on PBS. Yeah, I know, public television, but it is a fascinating look at the birth of a variety of musical forms, whether it is Delta blues or music that was invented by coal miners in West Virginia. I had no idea that the Carter family sort of invented country music.

Scalia

I always wonder if many on the right think that if you starve the poor they will move somewhere. Where? Well, that is yet to be determined.

That statement proves you’re too stupid to have a conversation with.

I always wonder if many on the Left think that it’s fun to torture babies as much as possible during abortions. See? We can play the same game, you idiot.

A bit of perspective. Where I live, we have a number of high schools named after Confederate generals. In the most recent discussion regarding those schools’ names, somebody unearthed the history. The schools were built right around the time of desegregation. The local government named them after Confederate generals specifically as a poke in the eye at black students who would attend.

Scalia

Forgive me if memory doesn’t serve me correctly, but I think we had this discussion some time ago. I can certainly see why people would want the names of said schools changed, but as I said previously, I think it’s delicious irony to see those same schools graduating a student body that is majority black. Poetic justice, I say.

pennywit

I think we did. Here in Virginia, I think we’re at a turning point in our relationship with Confederate history. In the state’s more liberal areas (Northern Virginia and some of the larger metropolitan areas), you’re starting to see a critical mass of people who want to move away from naming streets, schools, and parks after Confederate politicians and war heroes. There are also groups holding out against this movement.

Retired military

/yawn
David, I have seen just as many democrats who fly the Dixie flag as republicans.
Geez guy give it a break.

pennywit

Sorry to spin off in another direction, but this story from 2011 is an absolutely fascinating read. I think that the student in question later went on to play for Liberty.

Scalia

Yes, off-topic but a very good read. Thanks for sharing it.

pennywit

Glad you enjoyed it. I would be interested in seeing how the kid did afterward.

jim_m

Based on the timeline he could still be at Liberty. Depending on academics (and perhaps more so on eligibility) he would have graduated last year. If he had a red shirt season he would have graduated this spring.

Retired military

Things that David Robinson just wont write about

“Federal Prosecutor and Lead Attorney In Anti-Clinton DNC Fraud found dead on beach”

Man those people who can hurt Hillary politically just keep dying. One would think it was a coincidence or something.